Changes coming in 2019 after a year of potholes and scooters in Indy

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INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. - Indianapolis roads this year tested drivers' patience. There were tons of potholes and also scooters made their first appearance over the summer.

It was one of the worst year's for potholes Indianapolis has ever seen. Things got so bad, Mayor Joe Hogsett declared an emergency in the Circle City. The city approved $14 million to fix the roads and dedicated 36 workers to focus on pop-up road repairs.

“No matter how difficult this winter is, commuters wont face the same kind of deterioration because of deferred maintenance that they had to endure last year,” Hogsett said.

Potholes were bad at the beginning of the year, then something new hit the roads. Bird and Lime scooters began appearing around the city in June, and with them came tons of controversy.

At one point, the city suspended the scooters while figuring out how to regulate them. They decided on a $15,000 fee per company, as well as one dollar per day, per scooter. Money that will now be used to make improvements downtown.

“We’ve had plans for a while before the scooters even came here to keep improving the bike lanes downtown, adding protection or separation where we can so obviously now the scooters will be using those as well,” DPW Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator Jamison Hutchins said.

DPW will use the money to add bike lanes and maintain existing ones to make the streets safer for people using alternate modes of transportation.

“I think it is a combination of adding more dedicated infrastructure for bikes when we haven’t had it before but also just people moving closer to where they are working and playing and what not,” Hutchins said.

In 2019 the city will spend $126 million on transportation infrastructure – up from $98 million in 2018.